1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to friction-reducing and/or wear-reducing modifiers and, more particularly, to a combination of aqueous salt solutions and moderately hydrophilic single phase compounds that singly or together create emulsions within base lubricating fluids, thereby increasing the anti-friction and/or anti-wear properties of those base lubricating fluids.
2. Technical Background
Some of the energy used to operate industrial equipment is devoted to overcoming internal friction and wear. Base lubricants typically are used to reduce friction and wear. Whether conventional or synthetic, these base lubricants may be enriched with friction modifiers, wear modifiers, and detergent packages. Several different friction and wear modifiers and detergent packages are currently used in motor oils, especially, and are miscible with the base lubricant. These friction and wear modifiers modify sliding and rolling friction within boundary lubrication layers between surfaces, usually metallic surfaces. For sliding surfaces this boundary layer typically is found to be a hydrodynamic boundary layer; for high-speed ball bearings this boundary layer is often found to be the elastohydrodynamic boundary layer. When lubricant base is changed out, friction and wear modifiers and detergent packages are removed as well.
Lubricants act at the boundary between two surfaces and form a layer that keeps the two surfaces apart. When the lubricant can no longer maintain separation at the boundary layer, the surfaces come into contact and relatively rapid wear and failure occurs. Lubricants have limited use in reducing friction and wear since their operational limits of performance at boundary layers are always defined; however, those limits of performance are also subject to improvements. Conversion coatings can create relatively long-lasting boundary layers and can be more effective in reducing friction. A conversion coating consisting mainly of metal may reduce friction effectively at a surface. Defalco and McCoy (U.S. Pat. No. 5,540,788) demonstrated that molybdenum, zinc, or tungsten can be deposited as a conversion coating on an iron surface when the salts of these metals are first dissolved in an inorganic phosphate polymeric water complex and then delivered in an oil lubricant vehicle to the iron surface. Furthermore, Defalco (U.S. Pat. No. 8,317,909) disclosed aqueous ionic compositions and processes for deposition of metal ions onto surfaces. The compositions form stable aqueous solutions of metal and metalloid ions that can be adsorbed or absorbed on and/or into surfaces. The aqueous solutions consist of sulfate (or phosphate) ammonium alkali metal salts with a single metal salt selected from Group I through Group VII of the periodic table of elements. An aqueous solution allows for a nano-deposition of the non-alkalai metal ions on and/or into the surfaces. The conversion coatings created by the deposited non-alkaline metal ions provide substantially reduced friction in metal-to-metal contact without the use of hydrocarbon based lubricants. These coatings include conversion coatings.
It is expected that these metal ionic solutions can be added to lubricating oils containing complex emulsifying detergents and/or dispersants, such as those contained in motor oils, and they may increase the anti-friction properties of the motor oil. However, many non-motor oil lubricants, henceforth termed gear oils, compressor oils, extruder oils, hydraulic oils, water, antifreeze, and the like do not contain the complex of emulsifying detergents and/or dispersants that are present in motor oils. It has been unknown heretofore how to produce emulsions in non-motor oil lubricants whereby those emulsions have affinity for associating with boundaries, thereby providing boundary layer organization-enhancing anti-friction and/or anti-wear properties of the base lubricants.